A Marriage Interrupted
by auzziewitch
Summary: Will and Elizabeth spend a blissful five minutes of marriage before the arrival of Cutler Beckett and the East India Company. This is a re-write of DMC and AWE
1. Prologue

_Greetings. The television, that vessel which keeps me communicated with the wide world beyond my flat recently showed me this really awesome film. You may have heard of it, _Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl._ Any way, watching it reminded me of this story that I attempted to write a few years ago – I never posted it so don't attempt to search for it. Any way, I think I now may have discovered the ability to write it. _

**Title: A Marriage Interrupted**

**Rating: T (for now)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Pirates of the Caribbean**_**. I am merely borrowing the characters for my own purposes and shall return them once I've done….please don't sue!**

**Summary: Will and Elizabeth spend a blissful five minutes married, before the arrival of Cutler Becket and the East India Trading Company. This is a basic re-write of **_**Dead Man's Chest **_**and **_**At World's End**_**.**

**~Prologue~**

For many, there comes a time in their lives when they realise that all that is required to change the entire course of their life is a single moment. For some, it may be meeting someone, for others it may be an event, the death of a friend for example. For Elizabeth Swann, it was the arrival of Lord Cutler Becket and the East India Trading Company in Port Royal.

Since then, she had thought every day of what would have happened if he had never arrived. It was quite easy; she and Will would have spent two months secluded from the world enjoying nothing and no one else's company but their own. It was a thought that warmed her entire body, but it was only internal, for the warming of her insides only made her outsides freeze.

She tried to remember exactly what it was that had happened, but it had proven to be difficult as the events were a complete blur. She and Will were happy, they were getting married, and they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. Had they actually gotten married, or had she just imagined that part? She looked to her left hand and saw the gold ring on her third finger. No, that part she had not imagined.

She smiled to herself as a tear spilled down her cheek. She kissed the gold band and felt more tears rise.

So they were married, he had kissed her lips tenderly for the briefest of moments, offered her his arm and escorted her along the aisle of the outdoors church. Clouds had covered the sky in a thick and dark cover, that for many would be an ominous sign, but Elizabeth didn't notice. Will was attached to her arm and was now, and would be forever, her husband.

They had led the congregation indoors, to the awaiting spread of food and drink; their first meal as a married couple, the formal celebration of two families uniting forever. However they were only in the process of sitting down when the front doors burst open and two officers in a naval uniform that was uncommon in Port Royal entered, closely followed by more.

Every single guest stopped and stared at the officers as they walked through the room, and four walked straight for the newly-wed couple. Questions of 'what's going on', 'what do you want', and 'who are you' came from both, and rumbled through the guests as Will was placed in shackles, and Elizabeth was restrained shouting denials of anything Will had done to earn this treatment.

After a few minutes, once Will was shackled completely, the two officers who had been holding Elizabeth back released her as she rushed to Will.

"Why is this happening?" She asked breathlessly, clutching his hands.

"I don't know." Will responded quietly, wanting nothing more than to brush the few stray strands of hair that had blown onto her face from the wind outside.

A clamour sounded from the doorway leading to the church where two of the officers were now standing – in fact they were now standing at every exit and every corner. Will and Elizabeth looked to the noise to see her father trying to enter the room but being held back.

"What's going on here?" He demanded towards the open doorway leading to the street. Neither Will nor Elizabeth had noticed the man standing, looking out as rain began to fall in its typical Caribbean torrent. "Stand your men down at once!" He shouted again.

Will and Elizabeth looked back at each other, both knowing that this was their life-defining moment. Elizabeth could feel tears rising.

"Governor Weatherby Swann it's been too long." An unfamiliar voice spoke from the doorway, causing both Will and Elizabeth to look up.

"Cutler Beckett?" Her father's surprised voice was the last thing Elizabeth could truly remember with any clarity before the blur began. It involved her being arrested, she and Will being separated, finding out Will had to find Jack and her escaping Port Royal.

Now she sat in the back room of a shack, lit by a solitary candle, surrounded by snoring sailors. It didn't help that in the next room sat two men, one her husband, and the other, the man who had spent two weeks terrorising her existence, and who she thought was dead. To make matters worse, her husband had been staring at her with cold, blank eyes ignoring her every word since she had boarded the long boat earlier that afternoon.

It was too painful to bear. So instead it forced her to think about every single action she had made in the past few weeks, trying to determine what it was that had seemingly destroyed her life.

~xXx~

_Author's warning: I have a shameful track-record when it comes to updating. Be advised that whilst I may appear to forget about a story, I haven't. So whilst updates may be slow, they will come._

_Also: be advised that this prologue's contents may change in the future._

_Remember to Review!_


	2. A father's love

_I've discovered I should not be allowed to write these things. That's not because I've recently been attacked by some of my tutors that I lack imagination, creativity, writing style and all the other requirements Stephanie Meyer does not have (I can't believe I just compared myself to Stephanie Meyer…somebody shoot me now….she's so much worse), it's because I have the uploading skills of a panda…I'm too lazy and would much rather sleep and eat._

_Okay, so that is the required rant down, here's the much desired (by some) update…enjoy!_

_Note: all the same disclaimers apply...i don't own anything, etc etc  
_

**~Chapter One – A father's love~**

Sitting in a jail cell, a pleasure no woman of the elite class should ever have to endure. Elizabeth was trying to force herself to ignore the feel of the freezing rock she sat on. The frigid, hard object was penetrating her every sense, and it was too much for her to deal with.

It was difficult to ignore, especially when she felt this huge lump in her throat that was constantly threatening to rise further. She wasn't a fool, she knew what it was. She swallowed her tears repeatedly, but eventually, the lump had risen so high that she could always taste salt in her mouth.

She missed Will. This was her wedding night, and instead of being able to be with him in the way every married couple should be, she was sitting in squalor with a horde of convicts in the next cell reaching out for her and whistling, treating her like a dog.

It was too degrading.

After what felt like an eternity of invisible tears, hidden sobs, and thoughts that featured death and destruction to her and Will, especially Will, she found herself going into a near catatonic stance. The men became silent, the cold became warmth, and the rock lost its hard feel. All that kept Elizabeth from drifting into a seemingly impossible slumber was the thought that Will was searching for Jack.

She remembered, the last time she ever saw him, that that would be that. Captain Jack Sparrow would remain a person who had popped in to their lives and then promptly disappeared. He was a figure who united them, whether he meant to or not, and he was an adventure.

All she had wanted since she was a little girl was the chance to experience an adventure, to experience piracy. Life on the high seas, a life of freedom and social equality; it seemed perfect.

Of course, Elizabeth had always forgotten that the books she had read these stories in had romanticized everything. A life on the seas was not perfection. It was grisly, dirty and not a life to be endured for a length of time, especially for a woman raised to be a duchess.

Feeling her hair become matted with sea-water, salt and sand had been too much. Having to put up with being gawked at by a bunch of men, being touched in all manner of inappropriateness, forced to hold her needs until the night fell so that the men would not stare at her as she forced her body into a position so that she wouldn't fall off the ship.

It had been the adventure she needed. It had made her blood pump and her heart pound. When it was over, when she was back in Port Royal, it was a joy to have her hair made up by another woman, being bathed and dressed every morning by her two maids, she found herself enjoying it more, appreciating it.

And then Will declared his love for her, saved Jack and kissed her as the days afternoon light changed, the sky becoming pink and gold. It was one of the most amazing and romantic moments to ever occur to her.

And it was all because of Jack.

And now, here she was in a jail cell on her wedding night, whilst Will was off at sea somewhere. And again, it was all because of Jack.

Elizabeth had half a mind to ring his neck the next time she saw him.

The sound of rattling keys in the cell door broke into her mind, and when she looked up the door was wide open and her father was standing before her, his cloaks flowing around his knees.

"Come quickly." His voice ordered. Elizabeth was too smart to question him; there was a wide open gate before her and her father telling her to come along.

"Shh, I'll tell you everything in the coach." He spoke as he led her down the hallway.

Elizabeth looked at him curious. "Everything? What do you mean everything?"

Her father looked at her, his eyes grave and sad. "I have arranged passage for you, back to England."

Elizabeth didn't need to hear the remainder of his statement to know that she was having no part of his plan.

"No! Will has gone to find Jack!" She whispered hoarsely.

Her father rolled his eyes, pulling her too him and forcing her to continue on down the hall. "Now is not the time for innocence, Beckett has one pardon only, and that is guaranteed for Jack Sparrow. Of all the sights, please do not force me to endure the sight of my daughter walking to the gallows."

At this statement Elizabeth felt nothing but guilt rise. All he wanted was to guarantee her safety; he had desired it ever since her mother died when she was 6.

"If he succeeds, I shall ensure that Will gets a fair trial." It was the mention of her new husband that jarred her thoughts, and reinstated her anger.

"A fair trial for Will ends in a hanging." Elizabeth spat, feeling anger course through her.

"Then there is nothing left for you here." Her father responded sadly.

A few moments later the carriage lurched into motion, and with it, absolute panic. Her father wanted her to return to England, to a life and a society so formal and restricted that she would never be able to breathe. At the same time Will was somewhere at sea searching for Jack.

At sea, Jack, Tortuga, that's where Will was going to start.

When the carriage eventually stopped moving and her father left her alone, she offered him a silent farewell, then with the stealth of a fox, escaped the carriage, refusing to look back, clenching her jaw, determined not to consider the possibility that this would be the last time she would ever see him, she ran.

_xXx_

_Remember to review!_


End file.
